Expanding- auger



lUNITED STATES PATENT OFFICEc CHARLES MEYER, OF FOND' DU LAC, VISCONSIN.

EXPANDING AUGER.

Specification of Letters Patent No. 23,381, dated March 29, 1859.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, CHARLES MEYER, of Fond du Lac, in the county of Fond du Lac and State of ldlisconsili, have invented a new and Improved Expanding Auger; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description of the same, reference being had to the accompanying drawings, making a part of this specification, in which- Figure l represents a vertical section of my auger taken in the plane indicated by the line m, a', Fig. 2, and Fig. 2 is a horizontal section of do, the line y, y, Fig. 1, indicating the plane of section.

Similar letters of reference indicate corresponding parts in the two gures.

This invention consists in arranging the cutters on sections which slide in and out in slots made in the stock of the auger and which sections are operated and retained by a scroll groove so as to be always at equal distances from the center and the cutters are attached to the lower face of two of those sections in such manner that the bottom of the hole made by this auger is perfectly fiatand even.

To enable others skilled in the art to fully understand and construct my invention, I will proceed to describe the same.

A, is a hollow tube in the top of which the square handle B, is secured or otherwise rigidly attached thereto so that the auger can be operated by means of a suitable wrench or brace. To the lower end of the tube A, the stock C is attached which serves as a guide to four sections D, D, and D', D', which slide in and out in slots o, and which are guided in their respective slots by ribs or projections b, attached to the stock C, and working in corresponding grooves b', in the several sections.

The cutters E, are attached to the sections D, D, and these sections are considerably larger than the oth-er two D', D', forming nearly a half circle, so as to give a firm bearing to the cutters and the places CZ', d', behind the cutters are hollowed out so as to leave rooin for the shavings to escape. The sections D', D', mearly serve to retain the auger in the center.

Projections o, are attached to the upper face of the sections D and D', and the projections lit into a scroll groove d, which is cut into the lower face of a plate E, which fits over the tube A, the lower end of which, where the saine joins the stock, is strength'- ened so as to form a shoulder c, and a ring F, fits over this part of the tube and it is attached to the same by means of screws f, f, justover the plate E, so as to prevent the tubes from getting out of gear with the projections c, but leaving space enough for the plate to work easy.

The plate E, is operated by means of a suitable wrench which lits into cavities g, in the edge of the plate.

The circumference of the hole made by the auger is indicated by a red circle in Fig. 2, and the sections D, D, and D', D', when expanded by the operation of the scroll groove are at equal distances from the center so that their outer edges touch the circumference of the hole and the auger is thereby perfectly guided in its motion, and in whatever direction the plate E, is turned, the sections D, and D', will always be at equal distances from the center and they will be retained in their position by the plate E, itself.

This tool may be used with particular ad vantage for boring tenons, in which case the inner edges of the cutters E, serve to form the tenon and the whole of the cutting edge of the cutters comes into use for the purpose of clearing the space around the cutters.

I am well aware that expanding angers have been before constructed in which the sect-ions are moved in and out concentrically, but not in the same manner, nor by the same means g-and I also know, that the dies of universal chucks have been operated heretofore in a manner similar to that in which I operate my cutters, but this is for an entirely different purpose, and I do not claim therefore the expanding cutters. Neither do I claim separately the manner of expanding the sections; but having thus described my invention That I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent, as, a new article of manu facture is,

An expanding anger constructed and operated substantially as herein described.

CHARLES MEYER. wWitnesses J. SCHEFFER, LOUIS RUPP. 

